Many known battery-powered medical devices, such as semi-automatic external defibrillator (“AED”) devices, rely on batteries to power electronics of the device, and, in the case of the AED device, to administer electric shocks to patients. For example, AED devices are used to provide electric shocks to treat patients for a variety of heart arrhythmias. The AED provides relatively high-level shocks to a patient, usually through electrodes attached to the patient's torso, to convert, for example, ventricular fibrillation to a normal sinus rhythm.
Studies have demonstrated that survival rates are high when defibrillation treatment is administered within the first few minutes following cardiac arrest. The likelihood of successful resuscitation, however, decreases by approximately 10 percent with each minute following sudden cardiac arrest. After ten minutes, very few resuscitation attempts are successful. Thus, it is advantageous to construct a portable AED to provide an operator with a better chance of responding to a patient in a timely fashion. The portable AED typically includes a portable power supply, such as a battery pack.
For a defibrillation pulse to be effective in terminating cardiac arrhythmia sufficient energy should reach the heart, through muscle, bone, organs and other tissues. To be effective, the battery pack should be able to deliver a high dose of energy when needed. Since batteries can lose energy over time, however, some battery packs include an expiration date to help an AED operator determine that the battery pack can deliver the necessary energy needed. The operator cannot tell many things from the expiration date, however, for example, whether the battery pack was previously used or whether the batteries of the battery pack contain sufficient energy to function properly. In other devices, the operator does not know the status of the battery pack until it is inserted into the medical device.
Thus, there is a need for an improved battery pack for a medical device such as an AED.